A key aspect of Leadership is realizing that you cannot be in every detail of a project for your organization. Instead, you have to trust your team to run experiments, fail often and quickly and provide you with feedback of what is working and sometimes more importantly, what’s not working. So, how do you let go of being in control of all the details? What ingredients are needed to create a culture of collective responsibility instead of control?

Today Deepa speaks with Jan Gilg about the limits of a controlling culture. Jan tells us how we can create empowered workplaces that build trust and growth for all.

• Clarity is key. Give your employees the freedom to make decisions. Giving them this environment lets them get out of their comfort zone and grow. Stay away from the “how”.
• Over communicate with team members. Give boundaries and set up the right framework.
• Fail often, fail early is a key philosophy, not only in the Technology industry.
• Total consensus is not the goal in projects.
• As a leader- the more concerns you can hear, the better.
• Vulnerability is needed for all of these aspects of a product: running experiments, having feedback sessions and how things are going, and there is a sounding board as well. 
• Articulate a clear vision and strategy in addition to acknowledging nothing is going to be perfect. Create the safety to have open communication, including challenges. This creates collective responsibility in the system.
• It’s important to acknowledge and accept the realities of the world and life. We need to give employees more flexibility.
• You have to take time to create team spirit which builds collaboration and connection. 
• Everyone needs to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, make sure you connect your people to that purpose and vision which will unlock potential and motivation. This creates amazing things.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know, what’s a piece of advice from Jan that you’d like to start incorporating in your organization?

Please feel free to connect with Jan and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Jan

Jan Gilg is President and Chief Product officer of SAP S/4HANA, which is SAP’s flagship product that encompasses ERP, finance, and supply chain. In this role he has global responsibility for the development, delivery, and product management of SAP S/4HANA, SAP’s Industry solutions, as well as the Digital Supply Chain portfolio. He is a cloud evangelist, a customer advocate and a business problem solver.  He is based in Walldorf Germany, but lived in the US for many years.

Thanks for listening and stay cool! 

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn...

Have you ever felt a disconnect between who you are outside of work and who you are at the workplace? Have you ever felt like you can’t be with the politics and the way restructuring and tough decisions are made inside your organizations? 

Today Deepa speaks with Anjana Sivakumar about authentic Leadership. Anjana has real tactical advice that you can start to use immediately. These are things they don’t teach you in business school!

• Authentic Leadership starts with knowing who you are and having a good sense of your personal values. You have to feel comfortable in your own skin. And this comes across in every role you have - be it Executive, parent or child, volunteer.
• How to stay true to yourself while dealing with sensitive information at work and dealing with colleagues/friends.
• Don’t feel like you need to stay in a rigid box in a Leadership role. Bring your personality to the role.
• Being Authentic builds trust and connection. Acknowledge the uncomfortable or hard things. 
• Don’t go easy and blame another person, own your mistakes. We lose a lot of time doing impression management and stressing over these situations!
• Communicate organizational changes and then listen to others as they go through their emotions.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know - what’s hard about being authentic in your Leadership role? Do you feel comfortable enough to be human? 

Please feel free to connect with Anjana and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Anjana 

Anjana Sivakumar is a dynamic HR executive with over 20 years of experience across various industries. She has worked with C-suite and senior leaders in numerous global organizations, both large and small. Her experience spans various facets of HR, from talent and leadership development to operating model and organizational design to DEI strategy development and implementation.

Thanks for listening and stay cool! 

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

Have you ever felt excluded in the workplace? We are willing to bet your answer is yes. Feeling excluded can range from being the minority to not being invited to a lunch group. What corporations tend to forget about is that employee motivation and retention is directly linked to belonging and inclusion. 

Today Deepa is speaking to Cheryl Thompson, Founder and CEO of CADIA - the Center for Automotive Diversity, Inclusion and Advancement. Cheryl is on a mission to double the amount of diverse leaders in the Automotive Industry by 2030. She offered great tips for how we can begin to change our work cultures to be more inclusive.

Key Points from this Episode:

• A big challenge for minorities is feeling as if you are always being watched and will be judged more than the majority. 
• When someone doubts us, we immediately turn and doubt ourselves.
• We can easily give up our own sense of identity to fit into corporate culture. 
• When we can’t be our authentic self, our brains don’t work as well! How much more productive and profitable would organizations be if all employees can be authentic?
• It is not enough to hire diverse talent, organizations need to embrace all cultures. This promotes creativity within projects and the organization is able to keep talent instead of having a high turnover rate.
• A change of culture within organizations will help build inclusive environments. First thing is to include yourself, take responsibility for showing up authentically. You can be the change agent.
• There has to be a Leadership Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion- they set the tone and the priorities, they model what is valued within the company. 
• Systemic Change is needed for overall inclusion in a company as well. You have to look at how your company hires, offers benefits, and unconscious biases.
• Start to assess performance differently. Ask your leadership team - What do you define as success? What would get in the way of someone who doesn’t look like you to reach that success?

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know in the comments - have you had moments where you have felt excluded in your work culture? What did you do? 

About Cheryl

Cheryl Thompson is the founder of the Center for Automotive Diversity, Inclusion & Advancement. A veteran of the automotive industry, Cheryl has over 30 years of experience at Ford Motor Company and American Axle and Manufacturing in positions ranging from skilled trades, operations, engineering and global leadership. She is trained in diversity and inclusion, career and leadership coaching and is Six Sigma trained and certified as a Black Belt. Learn more about CADIA and their mission to double the amount of diverse leaders in the Automotive Industry by 2030 here. 

Thanks for listening and stay cool!

Visit the...

Henry Kimsey-House today discusses Leader on top vs Leader in front. Henry co-founded the world-renowned Coaches Training Institute (CTI) which has trained more than 50,000 people. He is also the lead designer of the thought-provoking Co-Active Leadership Model. Henry shares what a leader on top is, how to stop being one, and how to become a leader in front.

[1:09] Leader on top is the command-and-control, traditional, hierarchical leader. When most people think of a leader, they think of someone who is separated from everybody else and, once they’re in that position, must continuously show up as the one in control. It’s where most of our leaders are these days.

The paradigm shift that we’re moving towards is moving leaders on top to leaders in front. Leaders in front learn how to hold a vision, see the distance between themselves and the vision, see the chaos that is in the way, and find a pattern through that chaos.

[5:27] Usually there are personal, internal limitations. They start not knowing who they are or what they’re about anymore. They’re going after something that is no longer related to themselves.

Another limitation is that they live their life in reaction. They control or manage things based on what they already know, and they’re not able to access the part of them that allows them to step into the unknown with courage.

[8:37] The two things that Henry would want any leader to start working on are:

1. Having a really clear vision based on your purpose and who you are. Not just a goal, but something that’s coming from your heart.
2. Bringing the people to the vision. In order to bring those people to the vision, you need to connect with them through your heart as opposed to just managing them.

[11:57] Vulnerability means exposing the truth of yourself and your emotions.

A lot of the time, people think vulnerability means crying but it doesn’t. It’s about letting people in. You are more powerful the more you can expose the truth of yourself.

[14:55] Henry says people need to ask for help. When you’re in a place of feeling like you have to be perfect, the last...

In this episode we welcome Robin Coghlan, Head of Operations at Coaches Training Institute. He loves helping people in making better decisions and is here today to talk about conditional decision making. Robin also tells us about the system he uses to determine his clients’ conditions and how we can utilize it ourselves.

It’s based on the idea that human beings are highly susceptible to influences from our environment and, therefore, the decisions we make are not always in alignment with what’s correct for us.

Some people are more susceptible to certain condition than others. Every human that is interested in self-development wants to understand this about themselves because we are that conditioning force. We can put more attention on areas that we are more susceptible to.

Robin works with clients on determining their susceptibility to certain conditions. He then explores those conditions with the client to see how they show up in the client’s life.

Two behavioral tendencies of Robin are:

1. Not knowing when enough is enough.
2. Always rushing to free oneself of pressure.

Those two things are separate, but you can see how they play together. The pressure Robin feels from his environment is immense, and that is fundamentally hardwired into his design. Because he is aware of this, he can feel it happening day-to-day and then gets to choose. He can recognize it and then tell himself that he doesn’t have to rush, but rather pause and let the pressure rub off him. He can also form agreements with friends, family, and colleagues that help him validate when enough is enough.

You may think this is common for everyone, and while that is a huge conditioning factor in our world, some people are better adept to working to that pressure than others.

Over Robin’s years of experience doing many versions of personality tests, he has begun to see issues with any system that asks him to answer questions to be able to tell him who he is. He does not trust that he is always connected with what is most correct for him.

The system Robin prefers is called Human Design. It’s based on birth data (specifically time of birth) and is a science of differentiation. What Robin has come to appreciate, through years of skepticism, is that he doesn’t get to choose what happened at his time of birth. There are energetic systems in our world, and this system speaks to that. Humans are complex, and this system has revealed things that Robin has not come across anywhere else.

If the resistance is so strong, then you’re going to be striving so hard for an outcome that is just not correct for you. To live a life of less resistance:

1. Become deeply self-aware.
2. Develop a community of friends and...

Monique Valcour joins us for this episode. She is an executive coach, a management professor, and a frequent contributor of Harvard Business Review. Monique discusses what burnout is, the symptoms it brings, the effects it has on an organization, and how to prevent it.

Burnout is an occupational stress syndrome that consists of three primary categories of symptoms:

1. Exhaustion: feeling that you just don’t have any more to give and drained.
2. Cynicism: a loss of meaning that was previously felt now showing up as a negative attitude towards your workplace.
3. A sense of reduced personal efficacy: struggling to do the core elements of your job which used to be relatively simple.

It’s important to think to yourself about how you are feeling and what you are excited about in the upcoming week. If you feel like there are dreadful feelings or a lack of excitement, that’s a good sign that you have burnout. If you’re finding that you’re always tired, that may be another sign.

At the organizational level, we see:

• Lower levels of employee engagement.
• Lower levels of retention.
• Higher turnover.
• Higher manifestations of stress.
• More absenteeism.
• Lower commitment.
• A negative impact on performance.

Monique often does an audit that asks questions of an individual’s energy resources and makes changes accordingly. These questions include:

• How well are you taking care of yourself physically, including your mental resources?
• What is the quality of your interpersonal relationships within the team or organization?
• What is the sense of purpose that you are enjoying in your work?

As an individual, it’s crucial to regularly ask yourself:

• “What are the things I’ve accomplished?”
• “What are the key objectives that will help move my work forward?”
• “Do I have people I collaborate with who are energizing for me?”
• “Are there some relationships I should reduce my exposure to?”

The most common ineffective strategy is spending more time working to get ahead in order to not fall behind on work.

In this final segment of a three-part series, I talk about the 7th and 8th reasons why change is hard for organisations. I share real-life examples from organisations who face these problems and provide advice to overcome these obstacles.

Let’s say you make a suggestion and people say “that’s too risky,” “we don’t have the resources to do that,” or “That’s completely unrealistic.” “Have you thought about the consequences?” You would probably react thinking “not again… Why do I have to deal with this?”

I spoke to a manager a few weeks back, lets call him “Tom.” He said that his company had a very inspiring and great product that’s losing money in the market every year. Every time he proposed a new idea, the team just talks about how the idea will not work.

Every time his team mentioned that this was not a good idea, Tom was providing counterarguments of why his idea was a good one. He was looking at the positive aspects of the change, but his team was looking at the negative ones. Additionally, Tom was looking at the negative aspects of the old way while his team was looking at the positive aspects of it.

The first thing to do is to learn how to have conversations that focus on the same aspect rather than having a tangential dialogue. Barry Johnson talks about this aspect in his book Polarity Management. And before we apply the concepts of Barry Johnson we need to shift the mindset to keep a soft focus on the results.

TIP: Keep a soft focus on results. Tom was focused on moving forward and achieving goals. Having a conversation about the negative aspects of his idea was completely draining for him. He avoided exploring this, and this caused him to also avoid the positive aspects of the current recipe.

A second job is when people are covering up their mistakes, covering up their weaknesses, and spending a lot of time and energy managing how other people see them. They may do presentations just to make an impression on other people, show only their good side, or filter information flow so that they have control over the situation.

Very clearly, we can see that employees are paid to do a second job. People who do the second job do not evolve because when you don’t look at your mistakes, you don’t grow.

There are certain industries where, of course, we can’t afford failure such as when it comes to safety and the lives of people. Let’s say we’re not looking at those black-and-white cases; there are many grey areas where safety is not an issue.

Lets talk about Digital Transformation where Agile principles are used so that, we can :

☞Learn from...

This is the second of this three-part series on why change is hard. I talk about three more reasons why change is hard. Providing meaningful ways to overcome these challenges and with examples I came across with my coaching clients.

Management has a very clear vision. They have the right analytical data in front of them, they see the capabilities, they see the future and make decisions based on these. This might be the same kind of change that the people want, but when it’s comes forced top-down, there is a resistance. This happens because the people are not treated like adults; their opinions are not sought after, and they are not engaged in a dialogue.

Recommendations:

• Question the mental model that you’re coming from.
• Be curious about opinions and judgements of other people.
• Remember that the dialogue is always an infinite loop between the self and the other.

As we saw in Part 1, adaptive processes are a necessary part of your change timeline. Mindsets need to shift in order for a technical change to happen. For a person’s mind to shift, we often come with a strong conviction that we know exactly what we need to change. People can see us with more precision than we ever knew. If you can get feedback, harvest it, and build trust, you can shift pretty fast.

Use feedback mechanisms like The Leadership Culture surveys or an ASK questionnaire. In the ASK questionnaire, you can have 3 simple questions:

1. What do you think is my greatest single challenge to achieve this goal? (Where “this” is the goal that you want to achieve.)
2. What is the one behaviour that you think I need to change?
3. If there’s one area that you’d think I should focus on, what would that be?

Fill this questionnaire by getting feedback from at least ten people. This will be much more precise than you deciding for yourself the one thing that you need to change.

I often hears statements like “you don’t understand me,” “I used to be that way, but that’s not me anymore,” or “these respondents don’t like me, and that’s why they responded in this way.”

Host Deepa Natarajan is solo in this episode to talk about why change is hard. In this first part of a three-part series, Deepa presents the three biggest reasons why change is hard, provides examples that she has witnessed, and shares how to overcome these obstacles.

Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey from Harvard University have done a large amount of research on this. An immunity is when there is a part of us that moves towards a certain goal, and at the very same time, we are unconsciously driven to go in the opposite direction.

The first example from their study is with heart patients. They found that when heart patients were told that their lives were at risk if they didn’t change their lifestyle, only one in seven made the changes they needed. The other six patients had an immunity towards change. Some felt that if they took medication then it means that they are old; they wanted to deny that fact.

A coaching client, lets call him Pascal, had the goal to ask open questions and be more receptive with his team members. What came in the way was a very deep assumption that because he came from a modest family and didn’t go to a great school, he needed to prove himself. His mental model was that in order to show that he was a strong, capable leader, he needed to have answers, opinions, and speak about those in meetings. These things got in the way of him asking open questions and being more receptive with his team members.

You might say that if he understood and discovered his immunity, that knowledge alone may be sufficient. Sometimes just knowing is sufficient, but a lot of times we’re so committed to our old beliefs that it requires time, compassion, and patience to test out those assumptions. Pascal was so focused on his own opinions and was holding on strongly to them.

Looking back at the heart patient example, we can see that of course they were motivated and determined to live longer. Yet, they weren’t able to make the changes needed.

The very same thing happens in organizations. When people aren’t able to make change happen, they start blaming each other for not being motivated and determined. People start pointing fingers, because when one fails to make the change happen in their organization, it is a cumulative effect on other people who are waiting on this person’s success to actually do their job.

A technical challenge, for example, is that your car is broken, you need to fix it, so you call an expert and ask them to fix it. You need to find the expert, you need time to take the car to the garage, and you need money to fix the car. A technical challenge is when the challenge can be solved by technical...

Dr Paul Lawrence author of the book coaching in three dimension talks about the importance of dialogue in making change happen in organisations. He is an expert on coaching and making change in organizations

In a debate people toss opinions at each other. Skilled conversations are more difficult to differentiate from dialogue and that’s what we do most of the time. Two people come to a conversation very respectfully and respecting each other’s non-negotiables and the conversation might be really productive and useful. A full dialogue on the other hand very concise is defined by William Isaac as shared inquiry. It’s a way of thinking and reflecting together.

[3:46] Dialogue requires effort because we are programmed to make assumptions.

Few Mental Models of leadership that come in the way:

• Over privileged positional power
• Assumption that I as a leader say what happens
• Assumption that I as a leader control outcome
• Assumption that I as a leader knows all the answers
• Assumption that it’s not my job to engage in dialogue with everybody

[6:00] People don’t like to do what they are told to do. They like to make meaning by talking to other people. So if you give someone an instruction, they may or may not verbally agree to comply, but you can be absolutely sure that they will talk to someone that they trust to make meaning of what you just said and from that conversation emerges a new intention and it may or may not be what you as an authority figure intended. That is just how change happens and it’s very frustrating.

 To make change happen, dialogue is needed and what comes in the way is, the way positional power comes into form.

The capacity to step back and see who I need to engage with in dialogue because I can’t engage in dialogue with everyone, is important. And who else needs to engage in dialogue with who else and see systemically through the lens of patterns that are at play.

Dialogue require time.

[09:35] Facilipilation is an example of how dialogue does not happen. i.e. when the leaders have a predetermined direction and facilitate in the name of collaboration, workshops, that is actually manipulation. It’s never deliberate, but it’s that piece that says, if I’m the leader, so what extent am I really clear in my mind about what is open for invention and what is not.

James Routledge, founder of Sanctus showed up on MeetMyPotential podcast. The mission of Sanctus is to change the perception of mental health, and James is here to talk about this mission. He shares his experiences with mental health and how Sanctus has improved workplaces.

It’s your state of being; not just your state of well-being. Your emotions, feelings, thoughts, and identity are all wrapped up in mental health.

Stigma in Latin means scars. The stigma around mental health is people’s individual fear, reticence and uncertainty of talking about it. This culture is changing, but it’s still the case in many workplaces.

A healthy, functional workplace isn’t created by oversharing. However, trust in functional teams is created by a certain level of vulnerability.

Five years ago, James never really used the words “trust,” or “vulnerability,” or “connection.” James left university and went directly into the high-pressure world of start-ups, which caused him to feel anxiety towards all the uncertainty in the business. James thought that as a leader, you shouldn’t show any emotion and you are a rock for everybody else.

Eventually, the business shut down. He felt lost, and this was when he was hit by all the feelings that he had suppressed for a long time.

Eventually, James ended up coming out about his anxiety. He wrote a blog post and shared it with the world. This was the start of a period of change and transformation. It gave birth to Sanctus.

Sanctus coaches are placed into the workplace to create a safe space where employees can talk to someone impartial and confidential about mental health. In many businesses that Sanctus has worked with, the perception of mental health has changed. The conversation around mental health has become normalized.

In one technology business Sanctus worked with, one of their senior engineers came to HR and said that he had planned to leave, and if it wasn’t for his Sanctus sessions at work, he probably would have.

The value to the business is creating an environment where people feel like they can be their whole self. Then, they will feel:

• Like they belong
• That they want to work
• Cared for
• Less likely to leave
• Motivated
• More trust and connections within teams

The most important set of people to make any change in an organization is the leadership team. If the leadership team have bought in the idea and they want to make something happen, they will find the...

Liberto Pereda has been the managing director in several big organizations. He has lead international teams successfully and recently made the shift in his carrier to bring collective effectiveness to all teams.

Vitality is the capacity to have a meaningful and purposeful existence, of self and organisations.

• In the complex world we cannot just depend on data and plans, we need to sense of what’s happening around us, in our markets and respond effectively in order to survive. Therefore, everyone in the organisation needs to feel vital to respond to complexity.
• Profitability, the way people hold conversations, the way behave are some ways to identify the level of vitality in organisations.

However, if we look into the last hundred years, we see that we have been asked to be profitable in a hard way, in a very focused way. And that has in instances resulted in low vitality.

In order to develop our organisations, we need to focus on the development of people who make up part of the organisation. As Robert Kegan speaks in one of his books, creating organisations that are deliberately developmental helps people grow, change and improve and eventually help organisations thrive.

When organisations exist to develop humans and the human race, we come together to deliver a higher purpose through real cooperation and authentic relationships.

Whenever there are conversations of US vs THEM in the organisation, it is a clear indicator of low vitality.

[11:16] The answer is quite simple.

1. Listening to people. Gathering your people, having a conversation, listening to the questions people don’t bring to the main stream conversation.
2. Engage with people in the front line of business because they know what’s going on, they know the challenges and they may even have solutions and ideas on how to overcome challenges.

[13:35]

Leaders need to unlearn:

• The belief that I have the right to speak first
• The belief that I need to always be right and always have the right answers
• The believe that I have to make the final decision
• The belief that I need to control everything

That’s impossible for a human being and this is very limiting.

Leaders need to:

• Develop others
• Hold the purpose and vision of the organisation
• Connect the organisation with the entire ecosystem
• Keep questioning themselves, keep challenging status quo.
• Be authentic and act with integrity

[16:24]

• Before starting a meeting, take a minute of silence and don’t jump into the meeting. Allow...

Lisa Lahey, faculty of Harvard Graduate School and associate director of Change Leadership Group at Harvard talks about her book Immunity to change.

Immunity is when there’s a part of us that wants to move in one direction e.g. towards an important goal and at the exact same time there is a part of us that is unconsciously driven to actually accomplish a goal that is in tension with the very important goal we want to accomplish.

So what you have is a version of a foot on the gas pedal and a foot on the brake at the exact same time. Lots of energy going on in that system. Basically maintaining the status quo. That’s an immunity to change.

Example: A person who wants to delegate better will have one foot on the gas and at the exact same time the person may have a commitment to, for example, not losing status or no longer being the “go to” person or not being the person to accomplish the goal. So it’s a perfect example of somebody who wants to definitely make headway by being a better delegator and at the exact same time not wanting to give up the self protection mechanisms that basically allows the person to feel good in their work setting.

Teams have immunity just like individuals. You can have a highly motivated team wanting to shift how they are acting and despite their best intension it’s basically not shifting in any consistent and reliable way.

Example: One of the most common ones that teams face is to be able to be more collaborative and the energy on the brake is the team wanting to preserve all the goodies that come from operating in silos. On one hand, it’s the organisation’s best interest if the team can collaborate more and on the other hand, people are protecting what they already have, i.e. the goodies that come from them getting a high profile from their individual performances.

So those are in tension with each other and if people don’t see what’s going on, they will continue to put a lot of energy into trying to make the changes with technical adaptations that won’t really be able to stick.

The change we’re asking one another to make is actually not so straightforward. Will power and motivation are not enough.

We get into very difficult self talk with ourselves like,

• Oh, I’m a loser. I can’t do this.
• We make attributions about others like – We can’t really count on them OR They didn’t mean it when they said they were going to do X….

Harsh judgements come from our misunderstanding about the dynamics of change. Change takes time because we’re disassembling the ways we protect ourselves. That’s a really hard thing to do. So that’s why they are so precious to us and, and we need to take care.

Change has many different dimensions to it and all too often we tend to go to

As the workplace has turned more and more virtual over the past year, teams can fall easily into the trap of getting onto a meeting and only discussing the projects at hand. At the end of the day though, we are all still human beings. Humans require connection and building trust with your team will actually increase productivity. 

Today Katja von Bergen joins Deepa to discuss attitudes and dialogue. She ventures to say that managers and executives should lead the way to create meaningful conversation for their teams and organization. 

Key Points from this Episode:

• In the Virtual environment, it can be easy to jump directly into business and tasks. We cannot forget to connect with each team member directly and get to know them as a human.
• Be aware that these valuable dialogues are going to be different and possibly outside of your team’s comfort zone. It’s good to make it fun, like bring a game. Keep it fun, the conversations do not have to be hard work. Try it once and see how they react. If it works, great. If not, try something different next time.
• These meaningful conversations lead to teams listening to each other deeply.
• You get to decide how deep you go. You cannot build trust unless you get vulnerable.
• Be easy with these valuable conversations and have fun with it. Be the example for your team.
• Create a space that is non-judgmental. 
• If the person does not want to go deeper, accept that. Do not force anyone to give more than they are willing to.
• This can be a great tool for inclusion.
• Here are 5 great questions to start these conversations-
• What was the best decision in your job and why?
• What are you most proud of?
• What are you grateful for?
• What gives you energy to get up in the morning?
• What is your type of humor? What do you laugh about?
• You must first open yourself in order for others to be open.

We hope you enjoyed this episode! Thank you for listening. Tell us in the comments, how are you taking one step towards meaningful connection today? 

About Katja

Katja von Bergen is the Managing Director and Entrepreneur of Agile Transformer, business unit of the German consultancy Kraus & Partner, but starting her own business in 2022. She has been in change consulting for 12 years and has been involved in quite a few projects, some of which went well and some of which went badly. Make sure you write to Katja on LinkedIn to get your free copy of questions for your next meeting! 

Deepa will be starting...

Leaders in different organizations, schools, families and in the community at large encounter complex situations and so it is vital for leaders to understand patterns at work to make viral change.

In this episode Alan Cardon, shares his insights on what systemic approach means.

Here are the main points:

• Systemic approach to change patterns enhances management efficiency rapidly
• If you want change in organizations, you need to start locally
• A successful change starts from the grassroots

Systemic Approach is the recognition of patterns and reproduction of new behavioral patterns to yield better results in large complex systems. Patterns enable one to understand how situations are handled and give us information on how challenging situations can be addressed in the future.

Look at the things in a holistic way to see what fractals repeat and make choices on how to evolve fractals. It is a less linear, less segmenting, with fewer expert orientation than what has been done in the past.

[4:34] "] Listen to the example Alain provides about patterns in organizations.

This can be done by working with the top 90 members of the organization in an offsite. This is where you can introduce patterns and disrupt patterns of how people behave and interact with each other. This has to be done repeatedly to get the new patterns registered in people’s minds, so they start to get a hold of it and see advantages of new ways of working. If you can change the top 90 in the organization that’s about 10 teams that manage other teams, you are massively inoculating a kind of virus that will spread down.

Sometimes, it’s best not to start from the top where its most resistant.

People don’t understand when they are told to behave as partners who have ownership and then in the very next sentence, they are told top-down. Discrepancy in the double language in centralized control systems is one of the biggest reasons for resistance to change.

When people’s opinions and ideas are included then they are more likely to embrace the change.

Nice talks and roll outs are basically push downs where top management wants to be applauded for their intelligent ideas, this won’t work.

For cultural transformation, start with small steps from the bottom, where people know exactly what’s going on. Real transformation needs to be grassroots with a vision.

[20:17] "] Change management is looking at all the processes like decision making, information flow, etc. Centrally driven change won’t work. Examine local patterns in different processes, find local solutions, experiment, measure the results and communicate the results with everyone!

Change that brings excellent results excites people.

What is conscious leadership? How can one build a more conscious style of leadership? Bob Anderson a true pioneer in the field of leadership development and research answers some of these questions.

Bob has been researching for the last 20 years the intersection between the inner maturity and how that translates into leadership effectiveness. He mentions there are three levels of leadership:

1. Reactive level
2. Creative level
3. Integral level

A reactive leader operates from a mental conditioning formed by believes and assumptions that we accumulated in our early days. We have been doing it our whole lives; so, it is automatic.

For instance, a reactive leader may not  speak their mind in order to be seen as a friendly person, or a reactive leader may be highly driven with a strong need to get it right that they become autocratic and critical. The reactive style of leadership always wants to play it safe.

This move from reactive to creative is what psychologist Dr. Robert Kegan from Harvard calls Self-Authoring i.e. we move from being authored by others to authored by self.

It is not feasible to create an organization that is innovative and provides solutions to world problems under the reactive leadership style. Organizations need a minimum of creative level of leadership in order to perform in the face of complexities.

Listen to the podcast where Bob shares his own story about a conflict he had with his partner while writing the book “Scaling Leadership”.

In the reactive style, when you are less conscious your automatic patterns reach limits and you hit against a wall.

You ask yourself: How do I become that? In Self Authoring mode we develop the ability to see into our own operating system and examine how it supports our vision and we get to redesign it. For instance, I don’t have

What is stress? How does the stress level impact our businesses? When do you need to get proactive to keep stress levels at bay? What can you practically do to reduce stress?

Steve Mitten is a Master Certified Coach with years of experience in coaching business owners talks on MeetMyPotential.

There is a general feeling that a little bit of stress is good for you and there is strong scientific data to back that up. And according to medical surveys and documentation, the stress level is on the increase. This is mostly experienced and talked everyone at the workplace. Stress impacts work and relationships and one needs to proactively take steps to deal with this.

Here are some key notes that I deduced from the conversation.

If one neglects to recognize increased stress levels and take measures to minimize and manage, it can have an impact on:

• Your relationship with your co-workers/employees/employer
• Your Health
• Your level of Intuition
• Your Creativity
• And finally, you get locked in circular thinking

If you do not deal proactively with your stress it is going to deal with you.

People usually do not realize the drastic effect the stress level is having on them until people point it out to them. The normal reaction is to keep on working and working even harder.

When the stress level increases, the stress hormone, Cortisol, increases and turns on the sympathetic nervous system. When you get older the body takes longer to process and it degenerates our productivity.

Worrying breathes air into stress accumulation

One of the contributing factors of increasing stress levels amongst business owners is to worry about the past and future. Most dwell in thoughts and regrets about the past and worries about the future. This goes further to stress accumulation in the body and the accompanying side effects.

The good news is it doesn't take too much time to stop and dedicate 10 minute twice a day to any activity off forward thinking, working thoughts and focus on what's happening NOW and this will turn on the relaxation system in the body.

Here are few things you can do:

• Go outside and pay attention to the nature
• Take your dog for the way
• Enjoy music or a cup of coffee
• Meditation / yoga
• Dancing
• Walk around the office block

Put your attention on your body, breadth and redirect your attention to whats here and now. When your mind's attention goes to planning or worrying just keep coming back to the present, its okay if thoughts come.

There are many practices - Try and see what works for you for 10min twice a day. Your energy and interpersonal skill set increases over time with practice.

Unless there is 4/5 level of interest or motivation don't bother. The first step is to do whatever is needed to get...

 In this podcast, Katrina Burrus explains: Who is a Brilliant Jerk? What are their destructive behaviours? How does it impact people, teams and organisations? What can you do if you report to a Brilliant Jerk?

A Brilliant Jerk is motivated to having outstanding results and is interpersonally blind. Take the metaphor of driving a car, a Brilliant Jerks has a very clear 2020 vision along with blind spots of their interpersonal behaviour which are very destructive. They are people who are very brilliant, sharp and they bring valuable competence to the organization.

Individual level: People get less creative as they start reacting to the Brilliant Jerk’s mood instead of what’s best for the company as they are scared of their outburst. So, they become wary of what problems they can share with this manager based on the mood of the day. So as leaders brilliant jerks don’t know there is a problem before there is a crisis.

Team level: Especially junior people don’t dare to share new ideas as they are afraid to be humiliated, so ideas don’t surface in a team. Katrina has seen managers who bang on the table and say “They are not bringing any ideas”. Brilliant Jerks don’t realise that being aggressive is not going to help others express themselves to share ideas or problems.

Organizational Level: Often there is a higher turnover. Especially talented people who are not well utilised by such managers leave as they can be ostracized because the Brilliant Jerk see him/her as a competitor. So talented people who are unable to bring out their talent leave. Some others who are aggressed fall sick and there are absenteeism.

In the podcast Katrina shares very interesting scenarios and examples, do listen to them at [4:25] seconds.

• In her 1st example the Brilliant Manager made humiliating remarks and made others feel insignificant.
• In the 2nd example the Manager was Micro Managing to the extent that it removed any kind of motivation and interest from the person to do a productive job.
• In the 3rd example, the Manager humiliates other people in the meeting in front of the big leader to stand out as status is important.

They cause stress to people.

The question to really ask oneself is – How to you feel after the interaction?

Because they are afraid that it will show badly in their results!

On the contrary the Demanding Manager analyses why the person is not performing. They analyse the performance – they check if it is a problem of motivation or skillset.

A Demanding Manager demonstrates empathy and sees why the other person didn’t succeed. They provide support and...

How do we ensure that hard work is paying off in our lives? What impact will you make as a leader of a team to make sure that objectives are realized?

In this episode, we will be dissecting on the topic “When does hard work not work” with Ben Dooley. Ben is an amazing life coach.

Business vector created by Freepik

In life, more often than not, we reach the point where we find ourselves doing so much work and yet the desired outcome seems to continually elude us. And yet, there are some easy and practical ways of discovering when we are not making progress while working hard.

When that happens, we often keep on doing what we’re doing and hope that something magically will change. This is not the best approach to take to ensure that our hard work yields a satisfying and accomplishing fruit. 

We need to have a clear-cut and well-defined goal and pathway to how we are going to achieve it. Sometimes we may have a realistic goal but are unclear as to how we are going to achieve it.

• The stress levels that we are subjected to when our hard work is not paying off keep us in survival, making us ignore the symptoms of hard work without fruition.
• When we are in a survival mode, we are thrown into the panic state and every other thing becomes irrelevant. Our ability to become creative and notice whats not working becomes weak and our hard work goes unnoticed.

We can respond to situations by working from a calm state looking at the different layers of our needs. When you are in the state of fear, you cannot see this; you will end up doing the wrong things and hit the cul-de-sac trying to survive.

In a team, every member has to come together, put on their thinking caps and conjure a strategy to make their hard work yield results. The blame games should be disposed and every member engaged and brought on board to the ideas and strategy. Every effort of the team players should be recognised and acknowledged. This is regardless of their attitude. The positive sides should be looked at and this is not possible when we are in the survival mode.

The team members can come together and make agreements on how to handle conflicts and disagreements as a team and not as combatants. These agreements creates a spirit of love and trust in the organization and increases productivity. Every team should have team agreements.

Create values, strategies and agreeements to make your hard work pay you.

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How can we enhance our conversational skill and relate better with other people? In this podcast of Meet My Potential, we will be discussing and provide deep insights into how to build a co-constructed conversation with Matthew Hill. Matthew is a renowned global coach, author, and public speaker. He talks on the benefits of a co-constructed, conversation and how to develop it.

Co-constructed conversation according to Matthew takes three forms, namely;

• This can be described as the identification of one’s preferences during a conversation.
• During co-constructed conversations, parties involved attempt to identify with factors that they have long been associated with.
• These values have been formed consciously and subconsciously over the years, right from infancy to the present stage.

Co-constructed conversation starts from knowing more about the other person.

These values predict your actions, feelings, and behavior. When two different people meet for the first time, they look towards identifying their self-perception in the other. Mr. A may look to see if Mr. B looks like any of the people, he knows. It is about comparing our new encounter with what we already know and experience. Should I trust or should I not trust? Should I trust or should I not trust? It is about conscious and subconscious bias.

Yes, this method of conversation can go wrong. Co-constructed conversation makes people leap into conclusion based on experiences latched onto their memory. It makes one dwell in the past experience while analyzing the present situation. This makes one to wrongly describe and conclude on the nature of the new event.

• One can start to build co-constructed conversation by not judging the other based on the conscious and subconscious bias. The KLT (knowing, Liking and Trusting) three pathway of finding real-time information about the other person can be used. Start from scratch to find out their stories.
• How can I find out about their values? You can through listening and absorbing what describes them. Many people are engrossed with the values that they have acquired over the years that they fail to listen to the other person to absorb what makes them.
• You can only learn about the other person if you actively listen to their stories. You can only know, like and trust them if you give them an undivided attention rather than jumping into conclusion based on your conscious and subconscious values.
• Repeat their last word with a rising intonation. This will give them a feeling that you have been paying attention and they will speak more.
• Ask them to speak more using paraphrase such as “please do speak more” and they will speak more.
• Be curious, kind and loving with them and most especially, give them the room to open up themselves and you will know more about them.

You can show empathy and respect their decisions if you should have this in the back of your mind. With empathy, the strongest...

Our guest on this episode of the MeetMyPotential podcast is Jolanda de Ridder, a specialist and practitioner in the area of guiding people through organizational change.

Adaptive processes relate to changes in peoples behaviour that arises due to a technical change in the organization. For every technical change timeline there needs to be a timeline for adaptive processess that address behavioural change.

While technical processes follow established know-hows, procedures and timeframes under the constraints of the organization’s budget to reach specific goals. Technical processes solve technical problems. Adaptive processes are about the behavior of the people on the technical process. Adaptive processes lack structure and require the leader to be very engaged. Adaptive processes are crucial to the healthy functioning of the accompanying technical process, but they are often overlooked or postponed because of perceived time and budget constraints.

However, when organizations underestimate the guidance of behavioral change during a technical change process, they face what is called an Adaptive Challenge.

Experience has shown that addressing these adaptive behavioral shifts during the time of the technical process shift is more effective and less costly than addressing these issues after the full implementation of the technical process, so it is counterproductive to wait too long.

The implementation and practice of adaptive leadership is the only way that adaptive processes will be successful. An adaptive leader must be open and willing to experiment, understand the values of the organization and be able to mentor and coach their employees and colleagues, and know how to motivate those around them to change behaviors.

The keys to successfully maneuvering adaptive processes are:

1. Be open, able to manage and mentor people
2. Be an adaptive leader to guide your people
3. Allocate time and budget

By employing adaptive leadership through adaptive processes, you avoid the unnecessary additional expenditures of having to start the process after the conclusion of the technical process. Also, the leader is able to establish personal and organizational vision and mission, which allows them to motivate the workers to succeed and alter their behavior as needed. A motivated and successful workforce will lead to a thriving and successful organization, which increases shareholder value, exceptional customer service, and high workforce morale, leading to positive social and environmental impacts.

The successful and effective adaptive leader takes a step back to assess questions such as:

• What was your roles?
• What were other roles?
• How did you interact with each other?
• What was your goal? Did you reach it? Why or why not?
• Are there things you want to change now for next time?
• What is your gap between your current situation and the necessary change?
• How do my changes fit in with the organization’s?

Jolanda highly recommends the...

In this episode of the Meet My Potential podcast, we are joined by Dani Poch  Managing Director of AddVenture and a faculty at the Coaches Training Institute to discuss aerodynamic leadership. He shares with us his input based on his experience and that of his clients, providing us with valuable perspective in our professional and personal lives. Being an aerodynamic leader expands from individual impact to affecting everyone the leader comes in contact with, improving the overall well-being of their world.

Here’s a summary of the episode. Listen to the entire podcast at:

When you are experiencing these feelings as a leader, you likely feel very light and empowered, easily handling any challenges that come your way and recovering when things might not go your way. This also means that you are leading from the lightness within you and are self-aware, managing your emotions to avoid being visibly angry or frustrated despite the circumstances.

1. Show passion in what you do by connecting to your true longings. Bring a sense of easiness, lightness and playfulnessin what you do, this is very critical in today’s environment.
2. Make choices based on what brings aliveness to you and others.
3. See yourself as providerse. Ask yourself the question: What is the contribution I need to do to create a better life for me and others?
4. Manage your emotions:That’s why leadership is very connected to mindfulness. Put your energy where needed and don’t get trapped negative feelings, anger or frustration that we can experience at work.
5. Recover Fast:by bring compassionate with yourself. Forgive yourself and forgive others.

Every day, an aerodynamic leader will spend some time in a mindfulness practice to remain self-aware and connected to their true values, focusing on the present moment. All of your choices will then be based on what will keep you in line with your true values, no matter what happens that might try to derail you.

Leaders are great in serving others and what they need more is to create space for themselves. Journaling is an important practice that gives you feedback and helps you to reflect. Journaling about your experience, where you succeed, where you fail creates space for greatness within.

It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish how to keep a healthy tension between your purpose or passion and the need for safety, which may lead you to not provide feedback when it is merited or hold back when the opportunity is presented to be vulnerable.

• How am I managing the dilemmas of purpose and safety in my everyday work?
• How am I making choices between purpose and safety?

We face these challenges at work and at times at home.

Have you ever been a Dirty Achiever? What makes an achiever dirty? How can we come out clean?

In this podcast Jonathan Reams answers some of these and other questions.

We all like to achieve things. As infants, we learn to control our body, crawl, walk etc., big achievements in our little worlds! This process of learning is driven by trial and error, experimentation and learning, and is linked to neuroscience, how dopamine makes us want to achieve a goal, and when we succeed, we get a rush of opioids that gives us pleasurable feelings. This is a natural brain chemistry cycle, so its natural to want to achieve. 

This desire to achieve can get hijacked. For example, underneath our drive for achieving tasks, there can be another kind of drive, which is more of a need, unconsciously attaching itself to the success of our task accomplishment. It might be that somewhere in our childhood, rewards, love, positive parental inputs to our self-esteem and so on became conditional upon achieving certain things, like good grades, sporting achievements, etc.

In our adult work life, this pattern becomes unconscious and automatic. We’re internalizing the need to be in control of the outcomes in order to have self esteem.

I remember one manager who always needed his team’s success to be about him. It is need for personal recognition to be seen as the one who made it happen. It was based on a deeper need, where he believed that he was not ok as a person if it was not his idea, his inspiration to the team, his ability to motivate the team that drove the achievement.

There were flies like:

This left little time for seeing the needs of his team members clearly. It also created an underlying anxiety that just made him push harder, and be more and more driven to achieve.

It is a big enough problem for ourselves to manage us and all these distractions. What is really hard for these dirty achievers, is to see the impact they have on others.

Because they are too occupied with all these flies distracting their attention. What they see is justifications for their opinions about others.

For example, with this manager, he was annoyed by his team members because they seemed to ignore his requests for action, didn’t take responsibility for outcomes, they were lying to cover up their incompetence and worst of all for him, didn’t seem to acknowledge his competence. So he interpreted their behaviors and formed the opinion that his team was useless, ignorant, incompetent cowards. And because he held these opinions about his team members, he would document everything they did or didn’t do, take his concerns to his...

In this episode of Meet My Potential, we have an enlightening conversation with Sam House of the Coaches Training Institute about a leader taking responsibility for their world. Different industries may have different opinions about leaders’ areas of responsibility inside and outside their areas of authority, but Sam provides us with a practical way for all industries to think about this topic that can be beneficial across the board. A leader may also feel like they can segment their responsibilities to work responsibilities and family responsibilities, but Sam presents a compelling argument for viewing every single interaction as an opportunity to practice responsibility to all of mankind.

Taking responsibility means owning your part of the effort by co-creating to reach your common goal. On the other hand, neglecting to take responsibility for your world often manifests as finger-pointing or claiming of victimhood by those who have been wronged by others or blaming others for things not going as expected. Not taking responsibility is like blaming others for the state of your experience rather than steping forward and owning your part of the responsibility of your experience.

For instance when one walks through their world, they are more conscious of their thoughts, their way of expression, their actions and ultimately aware that they are having an impact on their world. So one takes a more conscientious approach to the expression of their behaviour. For example it can show up in practical ways like, when you checks out of a grocery store you might engage with the cashier in a way that you see the other person as a humans (someone who has important and valuable contribution) and not as an object.

Being response-able means being conscious of others and able to provide a thoughtful response to their thoughts or behaviors. By being aware of the impact leaders and those around them can have on each other, both parties can create an appropriate response based on these ideals of consciousness and thoughtfulness. Engaging with your world in this way removes from you the feeling that you need to control your environment, which can feel burdensome and lead you down a path of overvaluing your own ego at the expense of your view of others.

Sam spoke about a book by Lynne McTaggart entitled “The Field” in which he unpacks the concept that no matter how much quantum physicists study, they cannot understand the aspects of time and space. Simply, this means that everything in the physical world is immediately available and accessible to everyone and the thoughts and actions of leaders can have influences far beyond the “world” that they feel is theirs.

By accepting that you are able to control very little of your environment and removing control from your definition of responsibility, you are free to focus on caring and concern rather than feeling the pressure to bring about your desired outcome. In a sense, we are all co-creating the world that we are living in, so our responsibility to ourselves and others is to be self-aware and intentionally recognize others for their contribution to the world. A great way to be in touch with this self-awareness is through prayer or meditation, to be in touch with your true self and understand your ability to...

We are no longer strangers to the digital space. The pandemic has forced us into this environment if we were not already there. We’ve had to move quickly and adapt and continue to evolve how we make use of digital platforms.

Today’s episode dives into the world of digital learning and transformation as Deepa speaks with Detlef Hold, Head of Digital Learning Experience for Roche. They talk about what digital learning is as well as give practical tips for how to use the platforms to achieve the most engagement and success within organizations. 

Key Points from this Episode:

• Digital Learning leverages technology platforms for individual or group learning. And it is about creating the best environment for digital workers, the world we are living in today.
• There is a lot of responsibility on digital workers. They have to be able to search, assess, and find what’s relevant. It’s important to use technology and build community around it.
• Small things make all the difference in digital learning, but it does require you to rethink the way you design these experiences.
• You have to create an environment where everyone has a voice and feels comfortable sharing.
• Focus on people first. 
• Climate, Facilitation, and Pace of program are key ingredients in keeping transformation happen in digital learning environments.
• Use co-creation to increase engagement in your digital environment.
• Make the most of your meeting time! This means you focus on dialogue and connection rather than tactics and summaries. Make videos of those items before the meeting.
• Utilize all forms to communicate on your digital platforms, be breakout rooms or chats or small groups. Engage in multiple ways so that everyone has an option to get in the conversation.
• Keeping cameras on for online meetings creates more connection, so encourage the use. This can take time and needs to be woven into your organization’s culture.
• The platform is a means to an end. You will have to convince your stakeholders of the technological investment.
• You are asking your employees to rethink the way they work. You are helping them build new habits and forget their old ways of doing. This is about mindset.
• Focus on the social structures needed to engage every employee. This is more important than the actual technological part of the transformation.
• Articulate your intention. 
• Experiment and observe ourselves. This brings about change within us. 
• When you find yourself in a place where there is opportunity, take it!

We hope you enjoyed this episode! Tell us in the comments, what is one way you are embracing digital learning? And what is one new way you learned from this episode to use digital learning?

About Detlef

In this first episode we have Valerie Teller who switched carriers from being a lawyer to helping people be a fuller version of themselves. Valerie’s unique style is to walk with people in the nature to help them reflect on their life challenges. She talks about how we damage ourselves through the voice of our inner critic.

It is the voice of the inner critic that goes on constantly in our head with a certain harshness and this can be quite limiting.

We can replay events in our head reviewing how things went. Reviewing in itself is not a bad thing as we learn from what we do. It is the quality of the review that is sometimes not necessarily kind. Just noticing that the voice of your inner critic is at play is key.

The impact is perhaps feeling horrible about oneself, feeling incompetent or diminished by the voice of the inner critic. The biggest thing about it is that it can be debilitating, as it can send you to a state of being helpless as you can’t change the past.

The worst part of that is that we do this to ourselves. The other impact of the voice of the inner critic is to potentially create shame within ourselves and shame isolates us; as we think something is wrong with us. That’s when the inner critic starts controlling us.

 The first step is to notice how you speak to yourself, because if you don’t notice how you speak to yourself there is no chance of doing it differently. Otherwise you suffer the impact of the inner critic voice without having any control over it. So, pay attention and notice when the inner critic is at play.

The second stepis to ask yourself the question: If a dear friend who you cared about very much was experiencing what you are going through i.e. your dear friend is replaying the event and feeling horrible, would you treat them like this? Would you speak to them like the voice of your inner critic ?

The third stepis to show yourself the compassion when you are learning by reviewing your past events. Be kind to yourself and know that in that moment being hard on yourself is not what you need.

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I’m Deepa Natarajan, and I want to thank you for joining me for the very first episode of MeetMyPotential. The focus of MeetMyPotential are High Achievers. In this episode I’m going to tell you a little about MMP, a little about you and what you can expect from our show.

I created MMP because I often asked myself questions like: How do I manage conflicts? How can I live in integrity with my potential? How can I get others to collaborate? How can I make change happen? I went through several self-development courses spending a whole lot of time and money. The courses gave me immense learning and allowed me to create a lifestyle I wanted. Before going through the courses I worked in the IT industry for over a decade. I know the stress, the tensions, the politics and I know you don’t have numerous days to spend on long self-development courses. So, I decided to create podcasts that give insights on leadership, with no commercials, podcasts that are totally FREE, so that that you can get the most valuable leadership tips while you are driving to work, joggin or simply walking your dog.

Episodes are of 2 different styles.

One type of episode are interviews. Where I interview an experienced coach or guru, to share with us key insights on a topic. Each episode is no longer than 20 min.

The format of the interview episodes includes:

• A brief description of the topic
• The challenge people face with respect to the topic
• With a concrete example
• One TIP that you can practically implement yourself.
• Every episode ends with a message to the audience.

The 2ndtype of podcasts are podcasts where you will only hear me. I will share with you highly useful leadership topics with concrete examples and actions that you can take to grow yourself with ease.

Frequency: To begin, I will release 3 episodes at launch and then I will release 1 episode per week every Monday.

I created this show for High Achievers. High Achievers because our society often tends to leave a lot on the shoulders of High Achievers. Most high achiever’s I have worked with in coaching sessions have pushed themselves very hard to get things done, be in action and shine. In working with High Achievers we noticed there is an easier way to succeed and one does not have to push themselves so hard.

If you are someone who is focused, likes to grow and lead a faces-paced life, you might have questions like:

• How can I move forward with ease ?
• How can I make the big shift ?
• How can I make the change happen?

Our insights from the podcasts might help you answer some of these questions.

I’d really be happy to happy to have your feedback by sending me an email or simply rate the show on itunes if you like them.

For personal feedback, I’d appreciate if you can send me an email. My email address is: Deepa@MeetMyPotential.com

So if you are ready to get inspired and get ignite your potential – Subscribe to our podcasts.

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Have you ever been a part of a transformation project? Or an organization who was looking to make scalable, rapid change? Being a part of these times in an organization can be stressful and intense. Many times employees are nervous about entering a transformation project due to all of the unknowns. 

Today Deepa is speaking with Elodie Loing about transformation in critical situations within organizations. Elodie shares her real life experiences with scaling organizations and creating change within teams. Elodie’s approach is about empathy, letting go and collective responsibility. This episode is for any one who may be experiencing a critical time in their organization, but especially for executives and managers. 

Key Points from this Episode:

• Many times change agents are called into a project and organizations are called in too late. 
• Critical times happen when there is high pressure and stress within an organization. It is generally systemic and performance is low.
• Being a mediator is different from being an operational manager. 
• Empathy is enriching and humbling because you are looking at the situation from another person’s perspective. 
• Being unattached - the ability to do the best you can and let go of what the future holds or what the outcome actually is.
• There is an opportunity to grow in every situation.
• Promote diversity in your teams. Hire those who have different opinions from yours and let them talk.
• Here’s an easy way to practice stillness - make an appointment with yourself, put it in your calendar! 
• The hardest part of a reset is your ego and your rational brain. Watch out for those!
• Co-creation allows you to let go of your own ideas and let others in to help you. Give your teams the benefit of working with you.
• Collective responsibility comes from within each person. 
• Accept yourself - the strengths you have, the weaknesses you have, every part of you. And realize you will make mistakes. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone.

We hope you enjoyed this episode! Elodie gave so much wisdom. Let us know in the comments, have you been a part of a transformation project? Was it during a critical time? What was the most memorable part? Was it stressful or fun? :)

About Elodie

Elodie Loing has 25 years’ experience in retail organizations including The Disney Store, Le Cèdre Rouge, The Nuance Group, Fashion History, Jean Paul Gaultier and Manutan. Elodie scales up and turnarounds organizations (in France and Internationally). She implements conflict wise dynamics which lead to improved team spirit and accelerated performance. Elodie is a National Mediator at French Ministry of Economy and Judicial mediator at the Paris Court of Appeals. She is also a Lecturer and Independent board member. Elodie is convinced that conflict-wise organizations are wiser and more

How many times have you had an idea or suggestion and not actually spoken it out loud? How many times have you seen something wrong happening in your workplace but you have not told anyone about it? Did you know that you are having an impact whether or not you are speaking? What is the legacy that you want to leave as a leader? 

Today, Deepa is joined with Zana Goic Petricevic, Founder of Bold Leadership Culture, to discuss how and why you need to be bold in your leadership. We are all leaders of our own lives, so why not be bold about it?

Key Points from the Episode:

• Boldness takes your soulfulness. In order to be bold, you have to engage your entire soul.
• There is a limit to your boldness that comes from your head.
• Reasonable and safe behaviors and decisions come from the brain. Unreasonable and risky behaviors and decisions come from the heart or soul, anywhere besides the brain.
• You have a choice to act more boldly and step outside of your comfort zone.
• Your discomfort matters less than your vision. This pushes you to act boldly.
• Zana shares a perspective to see how bold you are, based on SOUL - Self, Other, Universe, and Legacy.
• This is not easy! 
• Leadership is as much about the “being” space as it is in the “doing” space. There needs to be moments of pause and presence as well as moments that challenge and grow us.
• There is no boldness without personal risk involved.
• Try to break out of the mindset that your work is solely a means for income. 
• You cannot create legacy by staying small. 
• You are creating an impact whether or not you speak up. 
• Silence is a misused privilege. 

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know in the comments what part of the SOUL was most intriguing to you and your bold leadership. 

About Zana Goic Petricevic

Zana is the Founder and Managing Director of Bold Leadership Culture. Our mission is to cultivate bolder individual and collective leadership in organizations through coaching, learning and development. Zana also holds many certifications and credentials that make her a sought after Leadership Coach, Executive Coach and Facilitator. Visit her website here. 

Thanks for listening and stay cool! 😎

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

Many organizations are finding themselves in crisis right now. The pandemic has turned businesses upside down. So how do you persevere through crisis and come out stronger on the other side?

Today, Deepa is joined with Magali Euverte who is the Director of the Normandy lines contract with SNCF. Magali shares her experience of pushing through crisis, when it lasts for more than a year. Listen to this episode to hear real life experience of how you can inspire and invest in your team to build collective responsibility and achieve success.

Key Points from this Episode:

• Invest time and training in your frontline managers. Get them on board and encourage them to bring their teams.
• Find your purpose and why you will continue on this journey. If you don’t know your why, you won’t have much luck in continuing when the journey gets difficult.
• Understand what is in it for your fellow employees. Both in the sense of empathy as well as anticipating any possible roadblocks that may come along down the way.
• Celebrate every step along the way, otherwise the team will lose their motivation.
• Transparency includes engaging your employees in solutions, allowing them to contribute their feedback to build the solution.
• It pays to spend more time on the short term goals, rather than the long term goal.
• Communication builds team spirit. Team Spirit is what keeps the project going, even for over a year.
• It is important to be able to zoom in to the short term and zoom out to the long term, even with the crisis right in front of you there is a need to put processes in place that will help in the long term.
• Remember to reward every part of the project, especially in support of the long term goals.
• Resiliency is needed during a long crisis.
• Be honest about the crisis now and hold the future goal – yes the process will be hard and we can see what the future will be so we are going to keep going.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know in the comments what was the most inspiring part of Magali’s journey.

About Magali

Magali Euverte is the Director of the Normandy lines contract - monitoring and implementation of the operating agreement signed by SNCF and the Normandy region. She has operational management experience at the service of clients and teams. Magali implements several change management systems and supports managers for successful customer relationships.

Thanks for listening and stay cool! 😎

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

What is spirituality? Does that question make you nervous? Spirituality is not a part of the rational mind. This is why it is so hard for us to get into a practice of including spirituality into our lives because it is not in our comfort zone. The world favors the rational mind and we are conditioned to leave behind what is innately in us. 

Join Deepa and her guest, Gaurav Arora, as they explore the intersection of spirituality and leadership. How could including a practice of spirituality improve your leadership? What does it mean to ‘come home’? Are you living a life of intention? Listen to get simple tips on how you can start on this journey today.

Key Points from this Episode:

• From Gaurav’s perspective, spirituality is a process of coming back home. Where you unlearn what you’ve learned from social conditioning. Spirituality is being your true authentic self without any need of appreciation or acknowledgement from the world. It is a lifelong journey.
• Just by starting to ask questions about how you begin this journey, you have started this important work. 
• Ask yourself “Who am I?” continuously over time, keep checking in with yourself and discovering who you are.
• Find your source of joy. 
• When you are fully in what gives you joy,, you are not fulfilling a need. A need to show how smart you are or a need for approval from others. 
• Define your version of success, and make sure it is truly from you instead from others or the world.
• Intentions are extremely important. They can guide you on this journey. To find your intentions, ask yourself “What do I stand for?”. Your intentions should be the foundation of your leadership.
• Take a moment before your day starts or before a meeting to question, “What is my intention for this day or meeting?”.
• Gaurav says Leadership is a process of a leader leading a team to a common goal. It is a performance art. “Who you are is how you lead.”
• “Who you are is how you lead.” If you don’t know who you are, you won’t be able to lead.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know in the comments how you define spirituality and how it is included in your leadership journey. If you’d like to dive deeper into how you can achieve more in harmony, come take Deepa’s masterclass on why you need to rethink leadership here.

About Gaurav

Gaurav Arora is the Country Head of Erickson Coaching International - India as well as the Director of Certifications at The Leadership Circle. He is a Master Certified Coach, designated by the International Coach Federation. Gaurav co-founded Inspire Coaching Systems, a professional training and coaching company in 2009, with the mission to inspire himself and others to live up to our own expectations.

Check...

Have you ever come across an arrogant leader? I bet everyone has come across at least 1 arrogant leader. I have come across many in my years as a Transformation coach, working with many high level executives in organization. But, have you ever taken the time to turn around and examine your own arrogance? What would you find if you asked yourself why that leader’s arrogance bothers you? 

We will always have arrogance to deal with, but the most important piece of this is to recognize what triggers you and how you can better deal with the arrogance. Once you know why arrogance irritates you, you’ll be better equipped to name it and move forward. Listen to this interview with Bob Anderson where we dive into specific examples of arrogance.

Key Points from this Episode:

• It is easy to spot arrogance in others around us but more importantly arrogance needs to be identified within us. Instead of placing blame on others, first look at yourself and see what you find in yourself.
• We can feel vulnerable in work environments. As much as we want to feel like we are equal to or have the same amount of power as another, the truth is we all have different amounts of power at work. 
• We attach many things to our identity, our ego. We get validation from those around us which inforce how we think about ourselves. This has the potential to grow our arrogance.
• If you are curious about how you are showing up, go ask a few of your colleagues how they see you. You might be surprised to hear what you are telling those you work with, even just with your facial expressions!
• You never know someone’s story, where they came from and what they are dealing with. Remember compassion.
• There are no difficult people. They only exist because they raise a difficulty in ourselves.
• “It’s not who we are, it’s how we’re not who we are.” 
• Get in the practice of asking yourself, “Am I part of the problem?”
• It is so easy to identify ourselves as our ideas or our title, and if those things are not accepted then we feel not accepted.
• Remember to be open and listen. 
• Our life stories have developed us in a certain way. This is not a bad thing, but it is something that needs to be examined and looked at so that we can know why we behave the way we do.

I hope you liked this episode! If you are curious about knowing how and why you behave the way you do, schedule some time with me! I love helping others get to the root of how they act and figuring out next steps to create the change you are wanting. Schedule a session with me here. 

About Bob

Bob Anderson

Our world is built on a lot of complexity. But what would happen if we stopped and took the time to evaluate if that complexity is serving us? What if we realized that the complexity within our organizations is actually wasting time and doing the opposite that we are hoping for? 

Today I’m joined by Lisa Bodell and we talk about why it is important to get back to simple. There can be so much value in simple things like asking ourselves what are we saying yes to? In this question you can find what you are valuing and you will instantly know if you are on track to what you’ve said is the purpose of your work. Take a listen and get ready to be very honest with yourself!

Key Points from this Episode:

• We add complexity with the best of intentions, we are trying to solve a problem or trying to add onto a process we already have. We should spend more time stopping and getting back to simple.
• The goal of simplifying means to get to the heart of the work, meaningful work. We get too stuck in the meetings and emails.
• We all value getting stuff done. We all need to check our behaviors to take into account not our own work loads, but also our colleagues’ load.
• Complexity is driven by fear and creates comfort because there are places to hide.
• Most of us have been taught to not take risks. And no one gets punished by following the status quo so not taking risks is reinforced. 
• Change won’t happen unless the leaders give permission.
• ‘Kill a stupid rule’ exercise - remember to look at the rules that you adhere to each day, not only the rules in other departments.
• The way to make change stick is to change behaviors. Instead of changing tactics, you must change behaviors. Start doing this by questioning the assumptions around you and that you are run by.
• Complexity not only wastes time but it also kills your company culture.
• When everything is simplified, transparency rises above everything. It is easier to spot the problems and see what needs to change to make companies more efficient and innovative.
• Everywhere can have simplicity, no matter how regulated it is.
• Do a calendar audit - think about how many meetings you may not be needing to attend a week!
• These 3 behaviors are needed to embrace simplicity: Permission to be questioned, Say No, and Streamline decision making. 

Thanks for listening! If you liked this episode, you will LOVE my masterclass on how to Achieve Success in Harmony. It is all about diving into what drives you and what behaviors you could add into your life to achieve more balance in your life. Check it out here!

About Lisa

What does a “good” leader look like? What do you want from someone who is leading your organization? Times are changing, our environment is always in motion, our world is forcing us to think outside of the boxes we have created. As humans we create these boxes in order to give ourselves a sense of control and certainty, but the time has come to rethink the way we lead.

Sonja Blignaut joins me today to dive into our complex world and talk about how we as leaders need to reframe what we think is leadership. Sonja provides a very realistic and human approach to complexity. She highlights 5 points to thriving in complexity as a leader. 

Key Points from this Episode:

• Complexity is multiple aspects in a system that interact with each other in ways that are not linear. Each thing is changed when they interact with another thing and you are not able to predict the changes. It is a messy environment.
• We need to let go of what we think of as “Traditional Leadership” and what being a “good leader” looks like when we are faced with complexity. It won’t do us any good to be stuck in old expectations.
• Leaders need to normalize the idea that the world is uncertain and that will always be the case. One easy way to do this is to say “I don’t know.”
• Instead of drilling down to time-based goals(6 month or 5 year), it can be more helpful to focus on a direction than being very specific so that you can be flexible within complexity.
• Being fully present in complexity is key.
• All of us live and thrive in complexity every day, in social situations, in family events, even just in driving on roads. For some reason though, we decide that experience is not valid to bring into the workplace. Instead we walk into work and think everything is going to be ordered and we can control it. We need to let go of that.
• Here are 5 points for leaders to take to better deal with complexity:

1. Be open to diversity. In addition to being open to different races, cultures, genders, it is important to have a diverse set of perspectives and ideas on your team and within your organization. Oftentimes it is easy for an organization to have employees who end up all thinking alike. We need to be aware of multiple perspectives so that we can catch our blind spots as well as diversifying the way we do things because the only constant is change and you cannot do the same thing the same way for too long.
2. Be curious and cultivate it. Be open to being surprised. Over the past few decades we have become obsessed with being efficient and that has made us extremely task focused. There is no time to be curious in this efficiency world. 
3. Have the courage to be vulnerable. Acknowledge that situations are not always enjoyable and foster co-responsibility so that everyone can work on the problem together.
4. Get closer to the front line....

As a highly driven person, you are so good at problem solving. And most likely, you have been promoted again and again because you get things done, you achieve and solve the problems at hand. But at a certain point, these problem solving traits do not help you get to the next level. So, are you ready to take your leadership to the next level? 

Today Deepa speaks with Tony Stead from Airbus Defence and Space about stepping into Leadership. It’s important to acknowledge the different mindset that is needed between management and leadership - leadership requires letting go and building collective responsibility. Let’s move from management into leadership!

• As a manager, you can be great at all the doing, problem-solving. Leadership is more about stepping back and reflecting - seeing the whole picture. 
• When you are growing within your company, the way to stand out is to deliver results. When you are promoted to a higher leader, you have to focus less on delivering as an individual and focus more on the bigger picture and delegating to your team. Leadership is about letting go.
• Leaders need to focus on the problems of tomorrow instead of problems of today. 
• Making the transition from management to leadership is much like going from a parent to a grandparent. 
• Leadership is about finding the needle in the haystack. It isn’t about knowing everything. 
• You can’t lead with buzz words. You will lose connection with your team.

We hope you liked this episode! Let us know - where are you getting stuck between moving from management to leadership? And where are you succeeding at becoming a leader? 

Please feel free to connect with Tony and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

About Tony 

Tony Stead is currently based in Munich working for Airbus Defence and Space. He has been working within the Middle East and Europe for the last 15 years. He focuses on the agility of the team, the agility of the business and the agility of the project to improve our operational effectiveness and ways of engaging the stakeholder community. Tony is also a Fellow at the Institute of Leadership and Management.

Thanks for listening and stay cool! 

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

100 Episodes of MeetMyPotential podcast!! Wow!!! Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me and for taking the time to listen to each show. I truly wish that you are inspired after listening and get ideas on how you can unlock more of your potential. 

Thank you to all of the amazing and fascinating guests we have had on the show from Episode #1. I’ve been so honored to speak with so many different leaders across many industries. It has enriched and inspired my life, thank you again to our guests. 

I’m very happy today to say that one of our very first guests on the podcast is back. Sam House is an Executive Coach, a Leadership consultant, a Senior Faculty Member of the Co-Active Training Institute and my personal coach. What a treat to have him join again to celebrate this occasion.

In this episode, Sam and I discuss what is spiritual leadership and why should we be interested in starting a journey. Don’t confuse spiritual with religion here; we speak of spiritual in a very broad sense of being connected to everything in the world. It is a big conversation, both conceptually and literally, so get ready! And stay open to what might show up for you. 

Key Points to this Episode:

• Spiritual Leadership is Leadership with a broad lens. It asks, what is the thing that needs to be done in our organization that is aligned with something bigger in the world? It’s a holistic approach. 
• There is room for holding onto a goal and moving toward it as well as being open and flexible to what actually shows up in our lives.
• Control is an illusion.
• You need to observe yourself, without judgment. 
• Appreciate yourself and others, especially those who you disagree with. Appreciation does not mean “to like”.
• As humans, we will become attached to an idea or an opinion but you need to realize when you become attached and know how to recover from attachment.
• Highly Driven individuals always have a goal in mind and the drive to move forward to achieve them, but if something happens to derail their progress to that goal they can get lost or frustrated. We need to get to a place of balancing the drive forward with flexibility and moving with flow.
• We are in constant relationship with everything in our world. Sometimes we make up that we are alone and that we are in isolation. 
• Three practices that will allow us to be more receptive to messages from the universe are: meditation, be in connection to nature, or any kind of physical movement. Stay open to receive anything or nothing. Make sure you start by making a decision that these practices will be valuable to you no matter the result. This leads to an expanded relationship with everything in our world.
• Don’t look for evidence, look for the experience.
• Spiritual leadership is a path to see wholeness instead of separateness. We have a need to work this path instead...

Did you know the peak of our curiosity is at the age of 5? After that, there is a quick decline in how curious we continue to be. This is part of my conversation today with Dr. Diane Hamilton, author of Cracking the Curiosity Code and Behavioral Expert. Diane walks us through the four inhibitors and shares examples of how they show up in our lives. 

Curiosity is needed now more than ever in our world. I hope you enjoy this show and I hope it encourages you to ask more questions. 

Key Points of this Episode:

• There are four inhibitors to curiosity - Fear, Assumptions, Technology and Environment.
• If you don’t take the time to look at what factors are stopping you, then you won’t know how to move forward. 
• Curiosity requires us to have compassion and to be courageous. Time and experience help with this.
• Curiosity is the spark that lets leaders create whatever they want to make. For instance, if you were going to bake a cake, you not only need the ingredients but you also need the oven. Think of curiosity as the oven.
• The biggest step is to realize what behaviors you are exhibiting and seeing if they are rational or not. 
• Ask yourself, what stories are you telling yourself? Are they working for you?
• To build your emotional agility and curiosity, you need to ask questions because that will develop your empathy. Asking questions is the foundation of curiosity.

About Dr. Diane Hamilton

Dr. Diane Hamilton is the Founder and CEO of Tonerra, and Co-Founder of DIMA Innovations, which are consulting and media-based businesses. She is a nationally syndicated radio host, keynote speaker, and the former MBA Program Chair at the Forbes School of Business. She has authored multiple books which are required in universities around the world, including Cracking the Curiosity Code: The Key to Unlocking Human Potential, and The Power of Perception: Eliminating Boundaries to Create Successful Global Leaders. Visit her website here. 

I hope you liked this episode! Please rate and leave a comment on the podcast wherever you download your podcasts. Let me know in the comments what you think is the biggest inhibitor of your curiosity!

Thanks for listening and stay cool!

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow me on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

When we are young, it is so easy for us to try new things and get out of our comfort zone. But as we grow up, different situations happen where we start to learn to stay where we are comfortable. Perhaps we have a big failure and lose something dear to us. Maybe we do something wrong and get criticized harshly. No matter the way it happens, we become conditioned to not take risks.

Today, listen to the show to hear Andy Molinsky speak about his formula, The Three C’s, to reach out of your comfort zone. Get inspired to discover your conviction, customize your approach and gain clarity on what your reality might look like!

Key Points from this Episode:

• We all have different zones: comfort, panic, learning, etc. Different tasks fall into different zones and they can change over time. 
• Anxiety does serve a purpose; too much might paralyze you from action but a little bit might provide the right amount of motivation for you to step outside your comfort zone.
• The Three C’s: Conviction, Customization and Clarity. Think about a situation that is outside of your comfort zone. First think about the why, this covers Conviction. Next you can figure out a way to make stepping outside a little easier for you, customize it. Finally establish the realistic outcomes of this step outside of your comfort zone, this provides clarity.
• Babies have a learning orientation, they get feedback from parents and the outcomes of what they try. Over time, we shift from learning orientation to a performance orientation. 
• Psychological safety plays a big part in stepping outside of comfort zones within organizations. Think about how you can contribute to your organization's psychological safety.
• We are really good at avoiding anything outside of our comfort zone, but if we try and reflect on what happens then every time it will get easier. 
• When stepping outside our comfort zones it is very common to have some kind of physical or body response (like a knot in your stomach). Normalize this! 

About Andy

Andy Molinsky is a professor, consultant and keynote speaker. He helps individuals and teams reach their potential by learning to step outside their personal and cultural comfort zones. He is the author of two popular business books (Global Dexterity and Reach)and was recently chosen as one of Marshall Goldsmith’s Top 50 World Leaders in Coaching. He has two different coaching and training certification programs based on his books. Check out his website - www.andymolinsky.com. 

What is needed to make a transformation in your organization? What’s the difference between working with individuals and groups when trying to make a successful change? What is easy to forget when working with organizations and change? 

Join Reshma Ramachandran and I as we discuss transformation - what is hard about it, how it changes from individual to a group and what are the key ingredients to make it successful.

Key Points from this Episode:

• Human beings naturally do not like change.
• Change requires us to get out of our comfort zone.
• Every change makes you a better person.
• Organizations are not inanimate objects. Organizations are like humans- they have emotions, egos, ambitions and desires. 
• You don’t try to change individuals; you create change agents. 
• When making change, it is most important for the leader to change first. Walk the talk from the top down.
• Build trust by giving trust
• Speed is never at the cost of trust.
• There is no finishing line for transformation. 
• Change has to become part of the DNA of the company. 
• Change cannot be at the cost of the team.
• Challenge your thoughts and bring out your biases, then put the facts next to your biases.
• Life is what you make of it. We all have choices but we must be willing to accept the consequences of the choice. Change the narrative - can I accept this consequence?

About Reshma

Reshma Ramachandran is the Vice President of Hitachi ABB Power Grids. She grew up in rural India without access to reliable power, clean drinking water and other basic needs, her purpose to empower people to believe they have the power to choose and to enable people to go beyond their self-limiting beliefs has shaped Reshma's journey as a business leader over the last two decades.

I hope you liked this episode! Please rate and leave a comment on the podcast. If you’d like to dig more into transformation and how to make the sustainable change you need to become the leader you desire to be, come watch my masterclass! You can find it here. 

Did you know that most people fail at making change in their life? Even when told that the change will save their life, a majority of people still do not effectively make the change they want. So how does effective and sustainable change happen? What do we need to pay attention to in order to make the change and have it stick? Listen as I dive into how we all need to rethink leadership.

Key Points from this Episode:

• Don’t fall into the common mistake of thinking you can make change just by setting up a task list to get it done. 
• Making change is about you! Sit with yourself and figure out what your personality is telling you about how you can effectively make change
• Highly driven people are action-biased, a perfectionist, a problem solver, self-sufficient or future-focused.
• Oftentimes, we repeat our patterns of success. What trait has helped you achieve success in your life so far?
• Now, It’s time to look at what the negative effects are of these traits. Because we repeat these patterns of success, we often overuse the trait. This leads to negative effects. So, if you are so focused on everything being perfect, what have you lost? If you are always looking at the future, what are you missing in the present? These are some good reflection questions to ask yourself as we close out the year.
• Complexity asks us to slow down to sense what’s happening while speeding up to test quickly. 
• If mindset and personality were the biggest factors in thriving in complex times, which one of the opposing traits do you need the most? Stillness, cyclic nature, more presence, more co-creation, or more co-responsibility? Take some time to think and journal about what you are looking for more of in 2021.
• Would you like a thought partner with you on this reflection? Book a strategy call with me and we can walk through what traits are making you successful and what they may be holding you back from. Book a call with me here!

If this episode piqued your interest about how you can rethink leadership and make sustainable change in your life, please come watch my masterclass! You can find it here.

I would appreciate it if you posted a review of the show! And leave a comment, what does rethink leadership mean to you? What highly driven trait do you most identify with?

We live in a complex world and as humans, our brains often try to find ways to break complex things down into simple, manageable tasks. But what if instead we embraced the complexity and the chaos around us? What would happen if we let go of needing to know every answer to every question? 

Today I’m speaking with Dave Snowden, Founder of Cognitive Edge. Dave has been a pioneer of complexity and encourages us to let go of some of the ideas we may think are serving us and our brains. Get ready to be challenged!

Key Points from this Episode:

• Cynefin Framework - there are five different domains where five different types of Leadership are needed.
• Good leaders take those with them that compliment their weaknesses.
• Complexity is the new simplicity.
• You won’t know what you need to change, you need to have a team around you to see where you are intentionally blind.
• Collective leadership is necessary in complex adaptive environments.
• Hear about small experiments you can implement at your company.
• Consciousness is a distributed function in the body, it’s not just in the brain.
• There’s a difference between giving people direction and having goals.
• Hierarchy does not help in complexity.
• Leaders need diversity around them. Remember, cynics are the ones who care- keep them around.
• Be more connected and engaged in the world.
• Accept things as they are, don’t fight against them.

About Dave

Dave Snowden is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge. Dave is currently working on the application of natural sciences to social systems through the development of a range of methods and the SenseMaker® software suite. Cognitive Edge is the pioneer of the field of complexity, charting the way before complexity became “mainstream”.

This Thursday (10 December) is Human Rights Day. We are celebrating this year by speaking with Aron Le Fevre, the Director of Human Rights at Copenhagen 2021. He has a profound range of international politics and a solid knowledge of inclusion and equality with focus on the LGTBQ+ community. Take a listen and hear how you might be able to widen your perspective of inclusion. 

Key Points from this Episode:

• Inclusion means that every person can be him/her/themselves and not have to live in fear about being accepted. It is very broad.
• Many times, we hide certain parts of ourselves because we are afraid of having this difference from our colleagues.
• Diversity needs to be embraced.
• If you accept yourself, it will be easier to accept others.
• Systemic change is needed. Everything starts with the individual though.
• There is a need for shared responsibility and to be in service of others.
• Visibility is key to inclusion.
• Get out of your comfort zone and experience the world. Go see how other parts of the world live.
• We need to move faster to this place of inclusion. We all need to be more curious to always be challenging our own biases. 
• Change can only be made when we look at ourselves.

About Aron Le Fevre

Aron is a passionate and multilingual champion of human rights, with experience in international politics and the global LGBTI+ and Pride community. He is leading the Copenhagen 2021 Human Rights Forum with the goal to elevate the international LGBTI+ agenda, working together with a multitude of governments, civil society and non-governmental organizations both in Denmark and abroad. Check out Copenhagen 2021 on their website.

On this week’s episode I am honored to share with you a recent interview I had with Suzie Lewis on the Let’s Talk podcast. It was a pleasure to speak with Suzie and speak about why I created MeetMyPotential and the need to rethink leadership. I hope you enjoy this episode and after you listen, go take a look at Suzie’s podcast, Let’s talk. She has some great interviews so that you can stay connected to the changing digital world.

Key Points from this Episode:

• Find out why I started MeetMyPotential
• Find out who I work with
• Technical challenges are easy to solve with your expertise, time and/or money.
• Challenges with other human beings take more work to solve.
• Highly Driven people usually can identify as a perfectionist, a problem-solver, being action-oriented, being future-focused, and/or being self-sufficient. These are the exact reasons why they have been promoted.
• All of these highly driven traits can be taken too far, it’s important to balance them with their duality. 
• Listen to my example of balancing between being a problem-solver and having co-responsibility. This is what I mean when I say we need to rethink leadership.
• Hear my definition of balance
• Ask yourself: Is the way I’m functioning sustainable? 

I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into MeetMyPotential and my journey to create the Rethink Leadership program. Please reach out if you’d like to learn more about what your highly driven traits are and what gaps you may have! 

Find out how to listen to Let’s talk here.

Are you always on the move? Running to the next meeting or get the next project done? Do you find yourself relying on your logical, problem-solving mind? So many of us do! And to be honest, the world and society has rewarded this behavior for too long.

Today I’m joined by Joel Monk, co-Founder of Coaches Rising, to discuss the inadequacies of our rational minds. Take this time for yourself, maybe go out for a walk or find a place to sit and take in Joel’s words of wisdom. It is so important to not only take time for ourselves, but also listen to our bodies and make sure we connect so we can use the intelligences of our emotions and bodies. Let this podcast be a gift to you today.

Key Points from this Episode:

• The rational mind brings many gifts to us, we need to use it. Over the years though, we have placed too much emphasis on our rational minds. There are limits of the rational mind, we cannot depend on it for everything. There needs to be a balance.
• We need to develop emotional intelligence, body intelligence, and cultivate presence. This can open creativity and new solutions to problems you were encountering when you were stuck in your rational thoughts and ways.
• We get socialized in a certain way - performance and achievement are defined based on our upbringing. It’s so important once we are grown to take time to stop and get curious about what we as our own person define success as and what we need physically, mentally, and spiritually in order to feel our best. 
• Our world is so prone to action and doing instead of stillness and silence. We need to slow down and give space to feeling into nonverbal cues. Naming what is the feeling of the room or a meeting is a valuable leadership skill. And yes, you can do this without using your sight!
• Cognitive overload surrounds us; look for ways to bring simplicity into your life and work.
• Expand your window of tolerance with practices like going out in nature, breathing exercises, meditation, or any activity that slows you down and takes you out of your rational intelligence.
• Once we are open to sensing, we will be more open to welcome uncertainty and the unknown. This is truly how we live in complexity.
• Welcome all emotions. They are all valid.
• Take a pause, breathe and feel into your body. Notice what shows up without judgement. Remember to take moments of stillness throughout your day. 

Let us know what you felt from this conversation. What are you recognizing? What is stirring inside of you? Thank you so much for listening!

About Joel Monk

Joel Monk is a leadership coach, educator, facilitator and entrepreneur. You can get in touch with Joel by emailing him, joelmonk@coachesrising.com. 

He co-founded Coaches Rising, a company on the...

Did you know every time you speak you are having influence on those around you? Did you know that your behaviors can unconsciously be picked up by your colleagues, friends and family? How much are you aware of your influence? Are you being intentional? 

Join Jayson Krause and me as we look at the places where we are having influence and how we can become more aware of what impact we are creating on our environments. Make sure you listen to the end to hear 3 important questions we should all be asking ourselves to deepen this practice of intentional influence!

Key Points from this Episode:

• Learn about behavioral viruses and become aware of them
• You are responsible for everything in your environment either by the actions you have taken or the actions you have not taken.
• You are always having an impact, you just need to become intentional about it
• As a leader, you are a walking advertisement. Be careful what message you are spreading!
• Every behavioral virus you spread is your legacy.
• The biggest challenge to being the best version of yourself is giving the time to being intentional.
• Get clear about your brand - yes, you have a brand whether you like it or not. Once you know the qualities that make you you, that’s when you can dive in and start being intentional about how you show up.

About Jayson Krause

Jayson is a leadership strategist who specializes in helping organizations develop high-performance leaders and grow strong leadership pipelines. His experience spans from tech startups to Fortune 500 companies. Check out his company, Level 52, here.

Have you ever been in a meeting thinking, “I have the best idea - no one else’s even comes close to mine”?

Then this episode is for you! Today Deepa speaks with Bjorn Ekelund about diversity and the need for all perspectives to be shared by everyone on the team and organization. We tend to believe our own thoughts and processes are the right way, but it is so important to hear from everyone and get curious about ideas and structures. 

• It’s difficult to discuss cultural differences because it is so much a part of our identity. 
• Culture is not only a personal matter; it is important to business.
• We have been given a certain structure for how to succeed at life through our upbringing and culture. Every person is unique.
• Diversity Icebreaker is about getting a group together to recognize differences and our own processes. 
• Many times what happens is the participants realize it is very easy to have an individual think their way is better than another person’s way. The process brings awareness and consciousness to each person so that going forward they will acknowledge another person’s idea differently.
• We need all perspectives, this is a level set for the icebreaker. It creates understanding and respect for the team. It creates psychological safety.
• Go find someone that you disagree with and talk through the topic with openness and curiosity. 
• Managers and Team Leaders who expect the unexpected will make the best leaders. Listening is a powerful tool.

We hope you liked this episode! Take the challenge this week and go find someone to disagree with. The point of this conversation is to get curious about their different viewpoints rather than arguing who is right and who is wrong. Be open to learning something new!

Please feel free to connect with Bjorn and Deepa through LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

Bjorn Ekelund is a psychologist with over 25 years experience. He is most known for creating the Diversity Icebreaker – a concept that combines assessment of cognitive styles with an experiential learning seminar. Besides running his own companies, he has been lecturing at management schools in organizational psychology and international management. Learn more about Diversity Icebreaker here - https://diversityicebreaker.com/. 

Visit the show website at (http://www.meetmypotential.com)

Follow Deepa on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepanatarajan/)

What is your biggest commitment for this year? Do you ever feel like you are slipping away from this commitment? Can there be any compromise in commitment? If so, what is the impact of making compromises in your commitments?

Join Angela Philp and I as we discuss these questions and give simple tools to help you navigate your commitments through the rest of this year.

Key Points from this Episode:

• Making very clear definitions of commitment and compromise
• Learn if you are committed to pleasing or serving.
• Examples of having commitment with no compromise
• How to make a commitment
• Commitment comes from something bigger than you
• Easy tips for reminding you of your commitment - get your sticky notes out!
• Stay inspired by others around you! And surround yourself by a community, virtual and in person.
• Courage is a muscle that needs to be worked on
• Voice, write down and be your commitment! And don’t compromise.

About Angela Philp

Angela is an Executive Leadership Coach. She supports women who’ve created millions in revenue for their organisations through their deep commitment, devotion and brilliance, to also get more REAL, lean more fully into their edge – and own their power. Visit her website to learn more about her and her company, Queen of Possible.

What kind of internal and external validations are we looking for? What serves us and what holds us back from living from a true, authentic place? 

Join Mark Metry and I as we discuss what validation is helpful and what validation is not helpful. We had such a great conversation, I’ve split this episode into two parts. Make sure you’ve listened to Part I from last week first.

Part II

Key Points from this Episode:

• How building good habits adds up
• Be yourself. 
• Get into meaningful discomfort. 
• What you want to hide from the world, that is actually the thing you need to pursue and put out into the world. This is how you step into your life.
• Be aware of the small things. 

About Mark Metry

Mark is a Forbes Featured TEDx keynote speaker, on Amazon Prime's Docuseries the Social Movement & podcast host interviewing Billionaires, New York Times Bestselling Authors and World-Class human beings on his Global Top 100 Humans 2.0 podcast.

What kind of internal and external validations are we looking for? What serves us and what holds us back from living from a true, authentic place? 

Join Mark Metry and I as we discuss what validation is helpful and what validation is not helpful. We had such a great conversation, I’ve split this episode into two parts. Make sure you come back next week to hear Part II!

Part I

Key Points from this Episode:

• In order to feel the high points, you have to feel the low points.
• You cannot live by logic alone. Don’t be afraid to step into your emotions.
• Don’t overlook the small things! 
• Be yourself. 
• You can be successful and vulnerable.

About Mark Metry

Mark is a Forbes Featured TEDx keynote speaker, on Amazon Prime's Docuseries the Social Movement & podcast host interviewing Billionaires, New York Times Bestselling Authors and World-Class human beings on his Global Top 100 Humans 2.0 podcast.

High Achievers set a goal, they go all in and give 100%. They don’t stop until it is achieved. Then, they move on to the next goal in a heartbeat. Do they achieve high amounts of success? Of course, yes. There is no doubt of that. But what is the cost?

Join me as I give 3 simple ways to break out of this pattern of constantly moving and focusing on the future!

Key Points from this Episode:

• High Achievers love goals and being constantly challenged
• What is the cost of always driving and pushing to the next goal?
• How can High Achievers be challenged and be present in the moment to appreciate the here and now
• Be present with ‘what is’.
• Emotions are often underrated in the business world, but all decisions include emotions as well as data so make sure you are checking in with how you are feeling daily.
• Look how far you have come and how much you have achieved.
• Remember, the present moment is all we have.
• You are enough as you are!

I hope you liked this episode! Please leave a review and let me know - do you consider yourself a High Achiever? Do you give yourself all the credit you deserve for everything you achieve?

Would you like to know how you can rethink leadership to achieve success in harmony? Come attend my free masterclass to learn more! www.meetmypotential.com/webinar